Oscar-awarded Movie Fonts 2013 | Hacker News Reader

Oscar-awarded Movie Fonts 2013

linotype.com

59 pointsdnyanesh16 comments

It's always interesting to me to see the fonts used for movies are often quite common ones. Papyrus may be seen as the Avatar font now, but it's used a whole lot more.

I like to start from a font and then change it up from there to give some personality to a logo, while maintaining some familiarity (and piggybacking on the expertise of those font designers too).

The Papyrus typeface seems to have been coopted to reflect religious sentiment, to some extent. In other words, I've mostly seen it on some texts with some kind of religious tones --a book, a flyer, etc. Not sure how that happened.

It makes sense given that most religions are founded upon very old texts in very bad condition. Papyrus is a font designed to mimic very old / damaged manuscripts.

You're right, I've noticed that too. Probably because they're going for the old and wise feeling. "Established in 1860" kind of thing.

This just drives home to me on why classic looking fonts are classic for a reason. Les Miserables added rolling gradients and shadows to Antique Roman and Django, of course, added a bit of grunge to Rockwell EB. Argo grunged up Akzidenz and added the silhouette backdrop, but aside from that, most of these fonts are pretty much as-is.

Interesting breakdown, but I think it's a little font-obsessed biased e.g. "The artificial slab serif ITC Lubalin by Herb Lubalin not only embodies stability, but also emanates a very special kind of amiability. "

I'd say the reason this font was chosen had a little more to do with the fact that it looks very similar to most writing on old football jerseys. Sometimes the reason something is chosen is much simpler than we (experts in that field) want it to be.

That's interesting from a cultural perspective. Our feelings about fonts are deeply rooted in culture.

The poster they show is NOT the one I've seen. The poster I've seen has a handwriting typeface, and a diagram of a(n American) football play on it. I doubt that diagram would mean much in non-football-playing countries.

http://www.dvdsreleasedates.com/posters/800/S/Silver-Linings...

But the font they replaced it with (slab serif / ITC Lubalin) has "athletic" connotations in the US - it's a classic "varsity letter" font. Does that connotation carry over outside the US though?

Jennifer Lawrence won Best Actress for her role in Silver Linings Playbook. So why does this post (and its image) only refer to the movie as "Silver Linings"?

Looks like it's known as Silver Linings in Germany: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1045658/releaseinfo#akas

I wanted to submit this on DN (Designer News) but found out that it requires an invite code for registration.

I dislike the word "font" used this way. It reads the same as "mp3s used in oscar winning films". A font is the thing you buy or download, a typeface is the shape of the letters.

Font used to refer to a typeface in a single size. 9pt Helvetica Light used to be a different font than 12pt Helvetica Light – while Helvetica Light (in any size) and Helvetica Bold (in any size) are different typefaces.

That distinction used to make sense as those different fonts with different sizes used to be physically different things.

With the advent of digital typography, that distinction doesn’t make any more sense. Typefaces can be seamlessly scaled up and down, there really is no longer even a need for an extra word for a typeface of a certain size. You don’t need the 12pt Helvetica Light file or the 9pt Helvetica Light file. Font and typeface became synonymous.

Now, given this history it makes sense to see typeface as referring to the abstract notion of the shapes of the letters and font to the technical implementation of the same, however, that distinction is hardly ever made and there is even factually no wide gulf between the two meanings. It’s one and the same and if you think it’s not, you are confused.

I agree there is a ton of overlap. Much like there is overlap between mp3, tracks, and song. My iPod has 1000 songs/tracks/mp3s is all correct. But saying someone is a good font designer is as silly as calling a musician a good mp3 writer.

Font never referred to a specific file or just files in general. In current-day usage it‘s synonymous with typeface. That distinction is just non-sensical. It’s a stupid ret-conning by annoying pedants.

I don't think mp3 is a fair comparison, because "font" is not a specific format.

I had used the word "typefaces" earlier but nobody noticed it and hence I changed it to "fonts". The current heading isn't written by me.

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